


The Infinity Prequels

by BarkingPup



Category: Original Work
Genre: And the misadventures that happened, Angst, Chains, Fantasy, Horror, How the Gods came to be, I wanted to write my favourite, Other, Sensitives, Some gore and violence, Sympath, Sympathetic's, We don't even start with the very first one, formless magic is kinda a dick, making orphans, my bad - Freeform, my lovely diseased God, pray?, what do you do when all that power is a douche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarkingPup/pseuds/BarkingPup
Summary: “Have you ever tried to Sympathize instead of rote work?”“Whaddya mean?”Eff’s eyes glitter with tiny black Words. “I mean you don’t need to do rote stuff. You’re Sensitive enough you can Sympathize instead.”“But… Mx. Kissan says you shouldn’t Sympathize too much.”Eff grins, “but why.”He thinks. He… actually isn’t sure why. It’s just something everyone knows. Mx. Kissan has said it over and over and it’s a Rule but… why indeed?“Um… I dunno. How would you Sympathize that way, though?”Eff drips Words from its eyes. “I’ll teach you.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> These are basically the prequels to a novel I'm writing. I've had the ideas for a while now but they never fit into the actual plot so... here they are!

He is three when the sickness starts. He doesn’t quite understand as his parents call nurses and doctors into his brothers room. He doesn’t know why he isn’t allowed to see him. He stares up at his brothers’ window from the garden and pretends he is playing beside him, running his carved horse through the moss and tree roots. The house becomes muted and dark, the servants sparse. Everyone wears masks, meals are eaten in rooms, dust gathers in corners.The stench of thick incense burns his nose when he goes inside. The house becomes quiet, the servants timid, and his parents no longer walk the halls. When another birthday passes in silence and darkness he pulls out his stolen paper sheets and writes in sloppy handwriting with a regular ink pen.

 

He tries to remember what his teacher  told him. To focus on what he wants, what the words  _ mean, to wish it, to hold it, to grab it, to- _

 

The words snake on the page like scribbles, ink bleeding out, dripping onto his floor. He gets up, panicking because Mum will be so mad he got the floor dirty. The puddle spreads, jumps and bubbles and reaches upwards, oozing tendrils coalescing into a single point above the crumpled page. It’s…

 

someone?

 

He approaches what used to be an inky shadow. His socks soak up the puddled leftovers and he leaves tiny footprints on the wood. 

 

The shadow turns and a small, chubby face smiles at him. A hand is extended, fingernails black, and he reaches out with his own and grasps it. 

 

It’s cold.

 

“Hi! I’m your friend!”

 

And he smiles back. “What’s your name?”

 

The shadow’s expression never wavers. Wide, doe black eyes stare at him. “Whatever you want.”

 

“Okay! You’ll be… Eff! Cuz you are a friend!”

 

“Okay.” Eff watches him pick up the shredded paper on the floor. No more ink falls but the floor is irreparably stained and he worries what Mum will say. It’s almost night, though, and no one has come to tuck him in. No one’s really spoke to him since…

 

“Um… where do you wanna sleep?”

 

Eff stares at him blankly, smiling.

 

“Okay… here.” he pulls some blankets off his bed and piles them into a corner. “This can be your bed.”

 

Eff walks over to it and sits on the blankets. It is wearing a copy of his own clothes, a collared shirt under a vest with shorts, and he doesn’t think he has a nightshirt for it. He’s worn clothes to bed before so if Eff wears it’s clothes surely that’s okay. He nods at that and pulls off his own clothes. He has to grab an old nightshirt from the dirty bin but he is ready for bed. He crawls under his blankets and smiles at the wide stare of his friend.

 

“Night.”

 

He shuts off the bedside lamp with a touch and the shadow in the corner sits and waits. Watches as his breath becomes even and deep. No one wakes him the next morning and he stumbles out of bed with a grin. Eff is sitting in the corner, staring at him and he gives a wave.

 

“Morning! Wanna go play outside?”

 

He doesn’t wait for an answer before getting dressed in a shirt, jacket and pants. 

 

“Here, these should fit you.” He hands Eff a pair of his shoes. They are his fancy ones but Eff didn’t come with any so that should be okay. Eff puts them on and follows him when he leaves the room. The light sconces are dimmed in the hallways and all the curtains have been pulled shut. The spicy smell of incense hangs in the air and he wrinkles his nose. Finally, they reach the garden door and he shoves it open. He has to push Eff through because he needs to close the door behind him, that’s a rule. The stone pathway is covered in overgrown bushes and grass, small flowers speckling the area. Sunlight streams through the trees, glinting off half buried statues and tchotchkes. 

 

“Here! You can be the dragon and I’ll be the knight. This is our princess!”

 

Eff grips the wooden horse in a black nailed hand and nods. It’s hair does not gleam, thin lips pulled back in a toothy smile and they play in the garden as the sun rises and falls. The shutters on one of the windows cracks in a gust of wind and he looks up. There’s a shadow in the window, the press of a hand on the other side. He waves, turns to Eff.

 

“That’s my Mum’s room! It used to be Mum  _ and  _ Dad’s room but now Mum has a whole room to herself!” He glances upwards again but the shadow is gone. The garden is whispering in the wind and he stands, brushing grass off his pants. “It’s getting dark. We should go inside.”

 

Eff stands at the same time but pauses, listening. 

 

“C’mon!”

 

It follows him through the garden door. He presses a hand to the Word on a sconce, thinking, and it hisses as it lights. The other sconces light, the Chain going down each hallway in bursts of sparks and tiny Words.

 

“I can light them the best!” He says with a puff of chest. “My Sympathetic teacher says I have the most Sensitivity of anyone in the district! Ms. Harrison, that’s the cook, always gets me to light the fireplace, too. She says I make the best fires but I dunno if she’s lying about that. My brother doesn’t even have a Sympathetic teacher, I heard…” He glances around the empty hallways. “I heard he has no Sensitivity at all. Apparently, it’s pretty weird.” He makes a face. “I can’t imagine having none at  _ all. _ ”

 

He stops at another door. Words are carved into the wood in Sympathy Chains curling and snaking around the grain and into the wall around it. They gleam in the lights of the hallway. He presses a hand to the grain and  _ thinks _ and the Chains skitter towards it, tasting him, testing his blood and his Name and glistening from swallowing the power he has. The door opens.

 

“This is the Sympath room. Mx. Kissan comes every week and gives me lessons. They’ve been sick lately but Mum and Dad said I still gotta do it.” The room glows with the Words carved, painted, splattered, all curving and twisting among themselves like balls of worms. “Don’t look too close, it can make you sick.” He sits at a desk and pulls out a sheaf of paper. The edges of it glitter with itty bitty Words of containment and mediation. He grabs a nearby Sympath pen and uses the sharp nib to prick his finger. There is a hiss as the blood dissolves and the metal nib gleams. “I gotta do my rotes. You can do whatever, I think there’s some books on Mx’s desk.”

 

Under the dizzying movement of Words there is a larger desk covered in papers and worn books. Some of the mess has migrated to the floor, single pieces of paper with Blood Words smeared into unrecognizability, inked Words that spill from pages and onto the floor, books with worn protection Chains and Words dripping from their confines. Eff steps on a broken Sympath pen, the wooden handle snapped in half and nib melted into slag. There is a Blood Word burned into the desk, a smeared brown handprint around it. A few of the books are opened and Eff carefully shuts them one by one, sealing the Words inside. 

 

“Okay! Done!” He places the pen down. ‘Um… no one’s told me if I’m doin’ it right or not. Mum and Dad aren’t good Sympath’s and none of the servants can do anything Sympathetic… do you know?”

 

Eff smiles. “Sure!”

 

It skirts around a gleaming puddle of Words and looks over his shoulder. Small Letters scrawl across the page, trembling within the confines of the paper. As is the norm for rote work, none of the letters form Words properly, just in case the protection papers fail. 

 

“This needs to be a line, this is too curved… this needs a period.” It pauses. “Have you ever tried to Sympathize instead of rote work?”

 

“Whaddya mean?”

 

Eff’s eyes glitter with tiny black Words. “I mean you don’t need to do rote stuff. You’re Sensitive enough you can Sympathize instead.” 

 

“But… Mx. Kissan says you shouldn’t Sympathize too much.”

 

Eff grins, “but why.”

 

He thinks. He… actually isn’t sure why. It’s just something everyone knows. Mx. Kissan has said it over and over and it’s a Rule but… why indeed?

 

“Um… I dunno. How would you Sympathize that way, though?”

 

Eff drips Words from its eyes. “I’ll teach you.”

 

“Okay!”

 

They leave the Sympath room and he rubs his Name out, smearing his blood across the wood. The Words slither around the smear and absorb the leftover power before becoming inert, waiting for the next person to enter. Eff leads him to his room and waits for him to open the door. He realizes Eff hasn’t removed the muddy shoes and thus has left dirt prints all down the hallway. Mum was going to be  _ so  _ mad. Maybe if she heard he didn’t need to do rote work anymore she’d forget about the mess. 

 

“Okay. Grab a piece of paper.” Eff holds out a stolen Sympath pen. “And use this.”

 

“You can’t take the pens from the Sympath room!”

 

Eff just holds it out, expectant. He gingerly takes it, pulling out some paper from under his bed. Technically, paper isn’t to be used outside of the room, either, but he had taken some plain sheets long ago. He may as well go for the worst since he’s already broken one rule. He goes to prick his finger but Eff’s cold hand covers his wrist like iron.

 

“No. Wait.”

 

He drops the pen and Eff stares at him until he picks it up again. 

 

“Do you remember how you made me?”

 

He thinks back to the pain of being alone, the oppressive silence of the house and the dark nights and dark days. “...yeah.”

 

Eff blinks, Words spilling like ink down its face. “Think about that. And write.”

 

_ I don’t want to make anything else  _ he wants to say _ I was Sympathizing  _ he wants to ask.

 

Instead, he writes. 

 

At first, the pen only scratches against the paper, sometimes cutting into the page. He wants to stop, to say  _ this is stupid _ but he can’t, hand stuck around the pen and moving without his input. He writes and  _ something  _ flows out of the pen. It glistens like darkness and hate and sickness and smears across the pages, oozing out of the confines and snaking across the floor. His hand scratches Words through the paper and onto the wood below, the handle cracks in his grip and he still writes as splinters dig into his palm. He wants to stop, this isn’t what he wanted, and he lifts his free hand-

 

Eff grasps his wrist. 

 

He looks up, wide eyed, at his friend, his other hand spilling Words that crawl up the walls and drip down his bedsheets. Eff shivers, eyes black pits of Letters so thick they can’t be separated, dripping down its face into whole Words that slither across its skin, swallowing it. The hand that grips his wrist is cold and  _ moving _ and the closer he looks the easier it is to pick out the tiny spaces where Words don’t quite cover the blank space below. He whimpers and tries to pull away but Eff’s grip tightens, grinding his wrist bones together. 

 

“P-please… I don’t want-”

 

Eff pulls and he slides sideways, writing hand screeching the pen across the floor. He stares into the face of the thing in his room. A gash opens and rolls out words and Words into the silence of the house.

 

“ **_YoU CaLLED AnD We AnSSssswer, alWayS._ ** ”

 

His pen hand crawls closer and he watches as his own hand lifts, presses against the flesh of his captured arm. Presses  _ in _ .

 

He screams.

 

Blood rushes out in scrawled Words, his flesh peeling back as if welcoming the sharp nib of the pen. It presses hard and harder and his fingers slide into slick muscle with every stroke. It makes slick, slucking noises and drip drops and snicks as another vein breaks. Through tears and red covered flesh he sees the movement of Words beneath, lumps of snaking Chains and Letters crawling up and up and he can  _ feel  _ them under his skin. He screams and twists in the shadow’s hold even as agony makes him numb. He pleads and cries and asks for Mum and Dad and anyone to save him to stop him to help.

 

But no one came.

 

When the pen starts working Words into the flesh of his shoulder he passes out.

 

He wakes. An empty room greets him, and he wonders if it was all a dream but…

 

There are scratches on the floor, inert Words, a broken Sympath pen by his knee and a collection of ripped but blank papers in the corner. He looks down at his skin and sees nothing. Unmarked. Not even an ache. He stands, wobbling a bit from a head rush, and opens the door, needing…  _ something. _

 

There is.

 

There is the smell.

 

Sweetness and spicy incense mixing into a gagging mixture. 

 

There is the silence.

 

The hallways silent, no giggling voices or clatter of pots and pans, no soft steps as maids rush to and fro.

 

There is absence.

 

He stumbles to his parents’, no his Mum’s room, pushing it open and calling.

 

“M-Mum?”

 

The smell is overpowering. Sitting thickly in the back of his throat, making his eyes water. He gags and he can hear this repetitive slucking, off tempo and becoming a wet noise. Something lays in the bed, sheets kicked off, stained brown and black. The skin is moving, thick white maggots retreating and sliding about, spilling off the bed and inching across the floor. Beneath the white of the grubs is the dull yellow of dry bones and brown innards as they rot into sludge. He claps a hand over his mouth, swallows a scream. The walls are covered in flies and some buzz around slowly, heavy with food. He slams the door and runs down the hallway to his brothers room. He flings open the door and-

 

A tiny bundle oozes onto brown stained sheets, the wet sucking noise coming from the wrapped blankets.

 

He runs to his Dad’s room and-

 

The body stares at him with rotted sockets, dried, shrunken hand stretched out towards the door. The rancid stench of old, dried vomit permeates what’s left.

 

He closes the door and runs to the garden, needing the safety and cleanliness it provides. The garden is chilly, the end of summer is nigh, but nothing is frosted over yet. He sits under the willow tree, crying and digging into the dirt just… lost and hoping that something will happen and what what what was all that.

 

**look**

 

He blinks, wipes his tears with muddy hands, and looks around, confused. 

 

**look**

 

He can feel the pressure in his mind, like he’s tied a bandanna too tight. He rubs at his head but nothing is there. 

 

**look**

 

And he  _ sees. _

 

The house was built a long time ago, one of the few surviving residences before they started using AP and AP to tell time. It’s built out of that weird solid rock Historians drool over, covered in smooth and polished wood inside. There are big windows and large doors, impractical now as no one knows how to fix them but shows that his family is well off. 

 

It  _ crawls  _ with Words.

 

The entire building is covered in black, scrawling Words. 

 

He gets up, pushes aside the willow leaves, and stares.

 

Each Word is a swirling mess of other Words. The Anchor Words look burned into the foundation, linking eachother in a Sympathy Chain and fueling the power behind the rest. The Anchors gleam red with blood and he-

 

He  _ knows  _ they were created with a sacrifice. The strongest you can offer. Human death. He  _ knows  _ the Words snaking around the house are meant to bring disease and death upon all inside. He  _ knows  _ some of the Words are for confusion and fogging the mind to prevent the ones infected from realizing until too late. He  _ knows _ someone cast it. Someone wanted everyone dead. Someone  _ did this _ .

 

He’s gasping. Clutching his head as the band tightens and tightens and tightens. 

 

He  _ knows _

 

_ He knows _

 

_ H  e  k n o w s _

 

He scratches at his arms and as blood wells the Words scrawl across his skin in red, links and links of a never ending Sympathy Chain. They scrawl up his arm, across his chest, up his neck, inside his eyes, across his bones, burned into his tongue and each fingernail. He  _ is a Chain. _

 

No.

 

His mind spits out a Word for it. Although no one can make sense of Words there are translations, rough approximations some Sympathetics have tried to make sense of. Words can be spoken, written, and read but they will never make sense put together, slipping through the brain and memory like sand through a sieve. What is left is small and nothing compared to the whole beach, but it’s all that’s available.

 

He has become an Infinity Sympathy Chain _. _

 

_ One Who Reads. _

 

_ One Who Creates. _

 

_ A God. _

 

He staggers forward, towards the Words splayed across his house. He can find out who did it. He  _ knows  _ each Sensitive writes different, curling a letter here, making straight lines there. The trail of Intent will still be there because  _ He  _ is not dead, the Chain has not been completed. And he  _ knows  _ only his high Sensitivity saved him, the dark hate and sickness Words falling into the black hole his Sensitivity created instead of latching on like they did to his family. He can  _ feel  _ the Words of sickness inside him. He can  _ feel  _ the formless magic thick in the air, needing Intent and Letters to manifest. It prickles across his skin like insect legs, excited and familiar. It calls to him, happy he can finally feel what has merely been a vague impression before, wanting to be Used, ready to be Written. 

 

**it comes when he calls**

 

He sketches Words into the air and they burn with power and Intent. He remembers none of the rote he practiced over and over for he  _ is Words. _ He thinks what he wants and it Creates and Writes itself. He Writes of disease. He Writes fevers and sores and vomiting and pain. He Writes blood and rot and sweat. And he presses it to the Intent trail that slinks from the house to another one far away. He doesn’t know the house. He had not been old enough to start learning of his Dad’s rivalries, of the social circles his Mum circled like a shark. He watches the Sympathy Chain he created slither off, following the trail. His head pounds with new knowledge. He feels empty. 

 

The formless magic around him pushes him onward.

 

**go**

 

So he goes. 

 

Anywhere.

  
Behind him, the Sympathy Chains anchored to the house dissolve into nothing, becoming a part of the whole once more. The Chain has been completed. 


End file.
